Should heaven burn or hell freeze over, yet the shieldmen would not let down their guard. And Maroph, knowing the strength of the guardians, spake thus in most commanding tone:

“Whoso raises his arm against Farin and his fellowship shall likewise suffer the fate of Savia the Silver, who is damned by God. You have no stake in such small skirmish. Farin of Rosgaliant is not one of your own, and does not belong in the Underworld, save by holy appointment. Put back your shields and let him by, for as my daughter may well say, Sir Farin seeks to break the curse that sits on the city in Overland.”

The unseeable guards smacked their spears across their broad breast plates.

“We are the keepers of Underworld’s deepest gates, and our way is shut. The curse shall not be broken ere the world end. Depart from me, you holy triad. An you live, I shall not see your faces.”

And Sir Farin spake:

“Who keeps the keys that bind the city in Overland?”

“The keeper of Underworld’s seas.”

“Then in good will lead us to him.”

Again the guardians refused, but Lilith fluttered forth from Farin’s breast and cast light in the darkness; and the knights were made visible, and they cowered like blinded mice.

And the goblin that bore Savia’s stained soul unleashed a cry of horrid fury, and died of fear, and Savia’s shade escaped from Lilith’s light and fluttered back across the wilderness to the confines of her castle.

And Farin raised his sword and wrought mighty works against the guardians, slaying none, for all were dead, but delivering such stinging blows that none was left unscathed, and each and every guard fled after his mistress across the vast blank wilderness, for the shores of Underworld’s seas, that lay a hundred miles off.

But the driver writhed and changed his form, into a wisp of a ghost, and spread through the air like gray breath. And Maroph beheld the ghost, and saw that they had been tricked, and that the driver had been a guise put on by the witch Savia, whose dark arts spread mist across the roofs of the Underworld.

And Maroph spoke and said:

“Why do you defy the youth? He is Farin of Rosgaliant. He passes with our blessing. Do not touch him.”

And the wisp of Savia set the faithless dead on the holy triad, and there was mighty fighting, until Maroph broke the earth in twain with his strong hammer, and cast the dead into the pit he made. Savia made off and inhabited a goblin who tended to the Underworld’s second ring.

Farin and Lilith came to the bottom of the road. Ahead lay the twined brambles of the Underworld’s forest. An ivy trellis formed a doorway. The doorway opened to an unpaved road that snaked through the forest. Where it lead, no one knew, save forwards downwards.

Farin and Lilith passed under the trellis. Dark birds cawed in the wood. Lilith shone her light upon them. Their marble eyes were blinded, and they shied away into the deep, dark depths of the Underworld’s wood.

Now Savia, the Underworld’s witch, espied the travelers from her castle that lay in the high vales of the Underworld, and she sent her child to waylay them on the road. It bounded forth from her ivory tower, down into the forest. Lilith, knowing all, urged Farin to whet his sword.

The beast uprooted trees in its unworldly rampage. It tramped on four cloven hooves and stood taller than most horses stand. Its tusks were broad and sturdier than bone, and its snout, when it smelled Farin’s scent, bled with hungerlust. A boar, it was, and yet not a boar, for its father was a warlock and its mother, on the day of inception, had unnaturally taken on the guise of a beast and thus spawned this ugly imitation of creation.

It came down upon Farin, and plucked Farin from the ground by its jaws, and shook him like a rag doll. But Lilith, holy Lilith, would not let her champion be defiled. With the grace of saints, Lilith…